Automated system for rating employee screening practices and  corporate management

ABSTRACT

A novel automated system develops a uniform rating of the employment screening practices of organizations/industry entities (IEs) of a given industry. The uniform rating is based upon objective employee screening practices during pre-employment screening. Industry entities are allowed to view employee screening parameters of their own records, add information and update the values of these employee screening parameters. These records are also made available to all users. The system creates weighting factors based upon the relative importance of the selected employee screening parameters and creates the rating based upon a combination of the weighted selected records. This rating reflects an estimate of the completeness, or thoroughness of the employment screening practices which has a direct effect upon the quality of the employees hired and ultimately upon the quality of the products produced by these employees or the services rendered.

FIELD

This application is directed toward an automated system for collectinginformation about employee screening practices and optionally, corporatemanagement and making the information available to the public, and moreparticularly to an automated system for collecting information aboutemployee screening practices and corporate management and generatinguniform objective ratings and making the information and ratingsavailable to the public.

BACKGROUND

In any job performed by human workers, it is important for the job to bedone effectively and meet the expected requirements. These jobs mayinvolve producing products or providing services. Potential consumersweigh the positive attributes of a product or service against anynegative attributes when determining which to select.

Positive attributes of a product include how well it performs itsexpected duties. The positive attributes of a service include how wellthe company or employee performs the expected services.

The negative attributes of a product or service may include any harm orinjury the consumers experience from products or services. An injurycaused to the end consumer by a product could be a faulty braking systemthat causes a car to crash and injure the driver. An injury caused by aservice could be physical abuse to an elderly client by a homehealthcare worker. As indicated, the character of the employee has alarge effect upon the products/services provided and the related harmdone.

Therefore, when a potential consumer is looking for a product orservice, they weigh the negative attributes of the product or serviceagainst the positive attributes. In order to perform this weighing, theconsumer needs information and assistance in choosing the correctproduct or service.

There currently are rating systems which provide ratings (which may bescores) of how well products perform; however, they give little or noinformation on the negative attributes caused by employees producing theproducts. Similarly, there are rating systems which rate services, butprovide little information on the employees providing the services. Ifany such information is provided, it usually does not relate to the sameparameters. Therefore, currently it is difficult to rate companiesproviding products or services based upon the same parameters.

Since management has control over the workers and how they behave, manytimes studying the management of a company can provide information ofpotential problems.

Currently, there is a need for an automated system that acquires uniforminformation from selected companies indicating how the companies selectemployees that produce their products or provide their services, andanalyzes management to produce a uniform rating for these companies andprovide the information and ratings to the public.

SUMMARY

The current system may be embodied as a system for providing informationregarding employee screening practices of industry entities (IEs) 3having an IE storage 110 adapted to be remotely accessible and to storevalues of a plurality of parameters such as screening practices of IEs3. It also includes a parameter storage 130 having a list of screeningpractices along with their values, referred to as a “profile”, to beused to determine a rating (a score) for a selected industry, aweighting factor storage 160 adapted to store weighting factors thateach correspond to a selected screening practice indicating theirrelative impact upon a rating, a controller 210 coupled to the IEstorage 110, the parameter storage 130, and the weighting factor storage160. The controller 210 is adapted to acquire the selected screeningpractices from the parameter storage 130, acquire values of the selectedscreening practices from IE storage 110, acquire corresponding weightingparameters from the weighting factor storage 160, create a ratingequation for the selected industry employing the selected screeningpractices and their corresponding weighting factors, and create a ratingfor at least one IE of the selected industry having values for theselected screening practices by applying the rating equation to theacquired values for each IE.

The current system may also be embodied as a system for creating arating of the employee screening practices of industry entities (IEs) 3that has an IE storage 110 of having prestored screening practices thathave values indicating a status of each screening practice, weightingfactor storage 160 having prestored weighting factors for at least oneof the screening practices, a controller 210 which creates a ratingbased upon the values of the screening practices and the weightingfactors of each screening practice.

It may also be embodied as a method of rating the employee screeningpractices of industry entities (IEs) 3 in a given industry having thesteps of selecting screening practice 340 that are relevant to theindustry, determining a relative weighting factor 350 corresponding toat least one of the selected screening practices based upon its expectedimpact upon an employee's performance after employment. An automatedsystem 100 is provided to allow the IEs 3 to enter values for theselected screening practices relating to it, and calculate ratings 380from a combination of the values of the selected screening practices andtheir corresponding weighting factors.

The method of current invention may also include the steps ofidentifying the executive management of an IE from at least one of a)information entered by the IEs, b) a corporate database, and c) acorporate information service. Then choosing a target manager to analyzefrom the executive management found, and obtaining at least one of a)criminal background information, b) civil background information, and c)past corporate performance for the target manager. The obtainedinformation is adjusted for at least one of the a) severity of acriminal offense, b) age of the information obtained, and c) corporatesize. A rating based upon the adjusted information may optionally becreated. The information obtained, and optionally the ratings are madeavailable to a predetermined group. Further, the past corporateperformance of a target manager may be adjusted by the target manager'slevel in the company. The rating may also be based upon the ratings of aplurality of target managers.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

It will be appreciated that the illustrated boundaries of elements inthe drawings represent only one example of the boundaries. One skilledin the art will appreciate that a single element may be designed asmultiple elements or that multiple elements may be designed as a singleelement. An element shown as an internal feature may be implemented asan external feature and vice versa.

Further, in the accompanying drawings and description that follow, likeparts are indicated throughout the drawings and description with thesame reference numerals, respectively. The figures may not be drawn toscale and the proportions of certain parts have been exaggerated forconvenience of illustration.

FIG. 1 shows a system diagram of an automated system according to oneembodiment of the current invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating the steps of a method of rating theemployee screening practices of industry entities (IEs).

FIG. 3 is a more detailed breakdown of the step of FIG. 2 of selectingscreening practices for a selected industry.

FIG. 4 is a more detailed breakdown of the step of FIG. 2 of determininga relative weighting factor for each selected screening practice.

FIG. 5 is a more detailed breakdown of the step of FIG. 2 ofadding/modifying values for a selected screening practice of FIG. 2.

FIG. 6 shows a system diagram of an automated system according toanother embodiment of the current invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

As indicated above, consumers would like information and assistance whenselecting products and services. A product produced by an employee thataccurately follows the rules and training, and is conscientious abouthis/her work, produces a product that is more likely to perform itsexpected function than one produced by an employee that does not followthe rules and training and is not conscientious about his/her work.

Similarly, services provided by an employee that accurately follows therules and training, and is conscientious about his/her work are morelikely to be performed as expected. Whereas services provided by anemployee that does not follow the rules and training, and is notconscientious about his/her work, are more likely to result insubstandard services, or damage the consumer.

We will refer to the expected overall repeatable behavior of theemployee as their “character”.

The character of the employee is especially relevant in home healthcarecompanies (HHCs). A more detailed description of the HHCs will providespecific examples of how the uses and advantages of the currentinvention are applied to the HHC industry. Even though the currentinvention will be described in detail here for the HHC industry, pleasenote that the principles described here apply equally to many otherindustries and may easily be translated to these industries. The spiritof the current invention is asserted to cover not only the HHC industry,but also numerous other industries which screen employees beforeemployment.

The Population is Rapidly Growing Older

With the current demographics in the U.S., there will be a largeincrease in the average age of the U.S. population within the next fewyears. This results in a larger aging population, many of which requireassistance in daily living and some will also require medical care.Those older individuals that require medical care may be admitted to anursing home. Others may be healthy enough to live on their own butrequire non-medical assistance in washing, dressing, eating, etc. HHCsprovide people to assist these older individuals in their homes. TheseHHCs employ and train employees (HHC Assistants) to provide care forolder individuals. The HHCs then place these HHC Assistants in the homesof the elder persons (consumers).

For these reasons, a person who is tasked with finding an HHC for aloved one will need to have information about the process the HHCemploys to hire the HHC Assistant.

There are few rules indicating which information about each HHC shouldbe made available to the public. HHCs tend to advertise their strongestfeatures. They also tend to refrain from advertising any aspects of theHHC that would be considered negative. Therefore it is difficult tocompare HHCs in a uniform manner.

With the large number of HHCs available, the lack of informationprovided by each of the HHCs and the lack of a uniform system for ratingthem makes it difficult for a person (decision maker) making thedecisions for the elder person to make an informed decision as to whichHHC would be best for the elder person.

HHCs must be licensed by state licensing departments in order tooperate. Therefore, a decision maker may feel that since the HHCs arelicensed, they all would provide the same standard of care andprotections for the elder person.

In reality, the state requirements relating to screening of the employeebefore they are hired are minimal. Many HHCs have found that performingadditional tasks to implement additional standards and requirementsduring pre-employee screening, in addition to those required by thestate, result in employees with better character that provide a higherlevel of care. Therefore, the set of tasks actually performed by theHHCs during the pre-employee screening is a good indicator of theaverage character (performance during employment) of the employeeshired.

Due to the current lack of uniform information available to the decisionmaker about the employee screening process of each HHC, and themisplaced reliance upon the state licensing requirements, decisionmakers have inaccurate expectations of the quality of services that eachHHC will provide. As used herein, high quality is defined as efficientlyproviding services in a timely manner that meet or exceed theexpectations of proper service of the consumer (elder person in the HHC,for example) with no negative aspects, such as crimes being committed,defrauding of the consumer, or less than respectful attitudes andtreatment.

Less Rigorous Employment Process

Due to the rapid increase in the population of older individuals in theU.S., some HHCs have had a hard time keeping up with demand. In doingso, some have cut corners on their screening of potential employees, theemployment verification, background checks, training, oversight, andother tasks performed by the eldercare companies. These have causedproblems with the services provided by these HHCs. Due to the lessrigorous employee screening practices, HHC employees hired exhibitrepeated behavior of being unresponsive, lacking required skills, or notbeing as diligent as they should be.

Potential for Problems

As indicated above, the HHC Assistants are placed in the elder person'shome and are generally unsupervised when performing services for theelder person. The HHC Assistants spend many hours in an elder person'shome. After working with the same elder person for a while, the HHCAssistant develops intimate knowledge of the person's home, routine,finances, and other personal information. They are usually alone withthe elder person and unsupervised. The HHC Assistant may also becomefamiliar with locations where the elder person hides money andvaluables, as well as have access to financial information, credit cardnumbers, etc. These pose significant problems for the HHC. Therefore, itis not surprising that HHC Assistants have abused or otherwisemistreated elder persons, stolen items of value and financialinformation from the elder person.

Employee Screening Practices

It was found that the employee screening practices have a significanteffect upon the behavior and performance of the employees hired as HHCAssistants. The behavior and performance of the HHC Assistants greatlyaffects the overall perception of the quality of the HHC. Therefore, theemployee screening practices have a predominant effect upon theperceived quality of the HHC overall.

All terms will be given their common and ordinary meaning unlessspecifically defined in the specification. In such case, the specificdefinition should be used in place of the common meaning.

The same reference numbers are intended to represent the same structure,either on the same figure or across different figures.

It is to be appreciated that embodiments of the methods and apparatusesdiscussed herein are not limited in application to the details ofconstruction and the arrangement of components set forth in thefollowing description or illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Themethods and apparatuses discussed herein are capable of implementationin other embodiments and of being practiced or of being carried out invarious ways. Examples of specific implementations are provided hereinfor illustrative purposes only and are not intended to be limiting. Inparticular, acts, elements and features discussed in connection with anyone or more embodiments are not intended to be excluded from a similarrole in any other embodiments. Any references to embodiments or elementsor acts of the systems and methods herein referred to in the singularmay also embrace embodiments including a plurality of these elements,and any references in plural to any embodiment or element or act hereinmay also embrace embodiments including only a single element.

Still other aspects, embodiments, and advantages of these exemplaryaspects and embodiments, are discussed in detail below. Moreover, it isto be understood that both the foregoing information and the followingdetailed description are merely illustrative examples of various aspectsand embodiments, and are intended to provide an overview or frameworkfor understanding the nature and character of the various aspects andembodiments. Any embodiment disclosed herein may be combined with anyother embodiment in any manner consistent with the objects, aims, andneeds disclosed herein, and references to “an embodiment,” “someembodiments,” “an alternate embodiment,” “various embodiments,” “oneembodiment” or the like are not necessarily mutually exclusive and areintended to indicate that a particular feature, structure, orcharacteristic described in connection with the embodiment may beincluded in at least one embodiment. The appearances of such termsherein are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.Additional features, aspects, examples and embodiments are possible andwill be recognized by the person of ordinary skill in the art, given thebenefit of this disclosure.

It is also to be appreciated that the phraseology and terminology usedherein is for the purpose of description and should not be regarded aslimiting. References in the singular or plural form are not intended tolimit the presently disclosed systems or methods, their components,acts, or elements. The use herein of “including,” “comprising,”“having,” “containing,” “involving,” and variations thereof is meant toencompass the items listed thereafter and equivalents thereof as well asadditional items. References to “or” may be construed as inclusive sothat any terms described using “or” may indicate any of a single, morethan one, and all of the described terms. Any references to front andback, left and right, top and bottom, and upper and lower are intendedfor convenience of description, not to limit the present systems andmethods or their components to any one positional or spatialorientation.

Also, the decision makers have a great deal of power over the workersand services provided. Therefore, the integrity of the senior, orexecutive, management is important to the quality of services providedto a person. Therefore, it is highly relevant to analyze the executivemanagement. A manager being analyzed is referred to as a “targetmanager”.

FIG. 1 shows a system diagram of an automated system 100 according toone embodiment of the current invention. The system provides objectiveinformation and ratings of the tasks of employee screening practicesperformed by industry entities (IEs) 3. The IEs 3 may be home healthcare companies for the home health care industry, or other companies forother industries. This is an on-line system wherein at least part of itis remotely located and remotely accessible. As is shown, IEs 3communicate through IE communication devices 241 through local areanetwork (LAN), wide area network (WAN), Internet, private network, orother intercomputer connection means (collectively referred to as a“computer network”) 11 to an IE storage 110. The IE storage 110 is themain depository of information of the IEs 3, as will be explainedfurther below.

Users 5 are allowed to access, search, and view, but not modify ordelete information on the IE storage 110 using user communicationdevices 243.

A system administrator 7 communicates directly (or through an optionalsystems administrator communication device 247) with other elements ofsystem 100 to configure, initialize and otherwise manage the system 100.

Selecting Screening Practices

The system administrator 7 interacts through a system administratorcommunication device 247 with a controller 210 to determine a listing ofrelevant screening practices for at least one industry covered by thecurrent invention. Controller 210 may incorporate a specific deviceand/or software routines that aid in determining the screening practicesto be used. These screening practices differ by industry since certainscreening practices may be highly relevant to one industry but notrelevant to another. There are various methods of selecting the relevantscreening practices for an industry. A few such methods are listedbelow:

identifying the screening practices common to the leading publicationsin the industry;

statistically identifying the leading reasons for employee dismissal andidentifying the screening practices associated with these reasons;

selecting a group of experts in the industry and polling them for therelevant screening practices, then selecting those screening practicesthat had been proposed by several experts.

In a simple embodiment, an expert 9 in the industry, acting through asystem administrator communication device 247, communicates with acontroller 210 which may employ a processor 220. In this embodiment, theexpert 9 can simply input the screening practices to be used in therating process. These screening practices can then be stored in theparameter storage 130.

In another embodiment, controller 210 may include a parameter selectiondevice 230 that may receive published studies in the industry relatingto screening practices. The parameter selection device 230, controlledby the system administrator 7, searches for relevant screening practicesand analyzes them. The most relevant and/or commonly mentioned screeningpractices will be stored in the parameter storage 130 and used to ratethe IEs 3.

The parameter selection device 230 may also search published expertsurveys dealing with screening practices. These may be digested toprovide the few most commonly mentioned screening practices that will beused for rating the IEs 3.

The parameter selection device 230 may also analyze numerouspublications dealing with publications of experts' experience in thefield, selecting the most commonly mentioned screening practices thatwill then be stored in the parameter storage 130 and used in rating theIEs 3 employee screening practices.

In another embodiment it can be arranged that a number of experts 9 loginto the automated interactive system 100 through systems administratorcommunication device 247. The experts 9 can log in at their leisure overa period of time. The parameter selection device 230 may theninteractively send questions to the experts 9 requesting informationthat would identify screening practices that they believe are relevant.The parameter selection device 230 receives the experts' 9 responses,then selects the most commonly mentioned screening practices for use indetermining a rating. These screening practices are then stored in theparameter storage 130.

Determining Weighting Factors

In a similar manner, one or more experts 9 in the industry can provideinput as to the relative impact of each selected screening practice onthe quality of the employee hired. In a first embodiment, an expert 9may simply input his/her weighting of each selected screening practicein the parameter storage 130.

In a more sophisticated embodiment, a weighting factor synthesis device260 can search published studies in the industry and identify thescreening practices mentioned having the greatest impact upon hiringquality employees. The relative number of studies indicating that agiven screening practice is important may be used in assigning weightingfactors to each screening practice.

In another embodiment, a weighting factor synthesis device 260 cansearch expert surveys in the industry and identify the screeningpractices mentioned having the greatest impact upon hiring qualityemployees. The relative number of surveys indicating that a givenscreening practice is important may be used in assigning weightingfactors to each screening practice.

The system 100 according to one embodiment of the current inventioninteracts with the IEs 3. It allows the IEs 3 to view the informationabout themselves that is currently in the IE storage 110 that is beingprovided to the public. The IEs 3 is allowed to search through the IEstorage 110, view records, and provide updated information about its ownrecords in the IE storage 110. The updated information is verified bythe system administrator 7. Once it is verified, the information isupdated in the IE storage 110.

Table 1 below lists the screening practices selected as relevant forcreating a rating (score) of the employee screening practices of a HomeHealthcare facility, listed by type. It also indicates the relativeweighting factor of each.

TYPE WEIGHT SCREEN Employment 2 Employment Eligibility (I9) VerificationEmployment 2 Employment History Verification Employment 5Education/Licenses/Credentials Verification Employment 2 Reference CheckEmployment 2 Social Security Verification Background 10 State CriminalBackground Check Background 10 Federal Criminal Background CheckBackground 5 Civil Lawsuit Check Background 5 Credit History CheckBackground 5 Motor Vehicle Report Background 10 Child Abuse CheckBackground 10 Elder Abuse Check Background 10 National Sex OffenderCheck Background 2 Excluded Parties List System (EPLS) Check Background2 List of Excluded Individuals/Entities (LEIE) Check Background 2Tuberculosis Testing Drug 8 Pre-Employment Drug Testing Drug 2Post-Injury Drug Testing Drug 4 Random Drug Testing Drug 2 ReasonableSuspicion Drug Testing

As shown above, these are grouped into categories of verification ofpast employment, verification of background, and drug testing. (Otherscreening practices may be added that are specific to a given company orentity.) Each is listed by their commonly used names and each has theircommonly used meanings. The “Employment Eligibility (19) Verification”is a verification indicating that the person is eligible to work in theUS. “Employment History Verification” is a verification that theapplicant actually did work for these companies.“Education/Licenses/Credentials Verification” is a check that all ofthese listed by the applicant were actually received. “Reference Check”requires that each of the references listed by the applicant beverified. Similarly, the remaining employee screening tasks have theircommon meanings.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating the steps of a method of rating theemployee screening practices of industry entities (IEs) 3. Thefunctioning of the present invention may be described in connection withFIGS. 1 and 2. An on-line system is provided in step 310.

In step 320, initial information is acquired for each IE 3 from publicand private databases. This is general information to set up a recordfor each IE 3 which may include the name, address, and similarinformation.

In step 330, the industry that is to be analyzed is identified.

In step 340, the relevant screening practices for this industry areidentified and then stored in the parameter storage 130. As indicatedabove, several different methods may be used, one of which isillustrated in FIG. 3, which will be described later.

In step 350, the weighting factors which identify the relativeimportance of each screening practice are determined. There are severalmethods of determining the weighting parameters. One method includeshaving several experts in the field rate the relative importance ofselected screening practices, then performing a statistical analysis,such as average, mean, median, or other known statistical methods todevelop the relative weighting factors.

In step 360, a rating equation is created from the selected screeningpractices and their weighting parameters. At this point most of theinitial setup of the system has been completed. The remaining stepsgenerally cover adding information and updating the information andratings. One method of creating the rating equation is to give a valueof “1” for each screening practice that an IE 3 performs to anacceptable level and a “0” for those screening practices that an IE 3does not perform to an acceptable level.

Each of the screening practice values is then multiplied by itscorresponding weighting factor. All of the screening practice valuesmultiplied by their weighting factors are summed and multiplied by anormalization factor to normalize the equation to a desired maximumvalue. For example, if the maximum value is selected to be “100”, anormalization factor is selected such that if all employee screeningpractices were performed to an acceptable level, then the resultingscore of the equation would be “100”.

In step 370, the IEs 3 are then allowed to access the IE storage 110 andrequest information about themselves. If there is no entry for this IE3, it is allowed to provide information to request that a record becreated for it. The IE 3 is then allowed to suggest additions or changesto the information in the record of IE storage 110. This informationincludes values of the screening practices. The values indicate if eachscreening practice was completed to a sufficient degree. Step 370 isdescribed in a more detailed manner in connection with FIG. 5.

In step 380 the values of screening practices for each IE 3 are enteredinto the ratings equation to result in the current rating or score.

In step 390, the ratings are stored in the IE storage 110, making themaccessible to users 5, IEs 3 and the system administrator 7.

FIG. 3 is a more detailed breakdown of the step 340 of FIG. 2 ofselecting screening practices for a selected industry. FIG. 4 will bedescribed with reference to elements of system 100 shown in FIG. 1. Instep 341, experts are identified in the industry. In step 343, theparameter selection device 230 of controller 210 interacts with theexperts 9 to request their input to determine the screening practiceswhich should be used. These are the screening practices which directlyaffect the quality of the employee hired.

In step 345, the parameter selection device 230 receives and stores theresponses of the experts 9. Their responses are stored in parameterstorage 130.

In step 347, the parameter selection device 230 determines the mostcommon screening practices found in the experts' 9 responses. It mayperform statistical analyses on the experts' 9 responses to find andonly use those that are statistically significant.

FIG. 4 is a more detailed breakdown of the step 350 of FIG. 2 ofdetermining a relative weighting factor for each selected screeningpractice. FIG. 4 will be described with reference to elements of system100 shown in FIG. 1. In step 351, experts in the industry areidentified. The experts are requested to rate the impact of eachselected screening practice in step 353.

In step 355, the weighting factor synthesis device 260 receives andstores the responses of the experts.

In step 357, the weighting factor synthesis device 260 analyzes theresponses from the experts and creates weighting factors which weightthe selected screening practice based upon their relative impact. Thiswill involve how many experts identified the screening practice and howhighly they rated the importance of that screening practice. These arecombined to create the weighting factors. A large weighting factor meansthat the corresponding screening practice is very important indetermining a quality employee (one that performs well duringemployment) in the pre-employment screening.

FIG. 5 is a more detailed breakdown of step 370 of FIG. 2 ofadding/modifying values for a selected screening practice. It alsomentions parts of the system diagram of FIG. 1.

Once the screening practices are selected, the weighting factors aredetermined, and the rating equation has been constructed, the system maybe operated. FIG. 5 identifies the steps involved with an IE 3 logginginto the IE storage 110 and updating its own information.

In step 371, the IE 3 accesses the on-line system 100. The IE 3 maysearch through records of many different IEs 3 and view their records.

In step 372, the IE 3 may also request information on itself. In step373, it is determined if the record is present in IE storage 110 for therequesting IE 3. If its record is not present, the IE is given a chanceto build a record in step 374. Once it is completed, processingcontinues at step 375.

If the record was found in step 373, then the record is presented to theIE 3 and processing continues at step 375.

In step 375, the IE 3 is authenticated. This may be by any currentlyknown means of authentication. It may be passwords, biometrics, or useof additional security devices.

In step 376, the IE 3 is allowed to enter information or submitmodifications to existing information in its own record.

This information is verified in step 377 by the system administrator 7,and if it verifies correctly, it is entered into IE storage 110.

Since the IE 3 is now interacting with the system, it can alsooptionally indicate a free basic listing, or opt for a more detailedlisting for a small fee in step 378.

In step 379, the IE 3 is given the opportunity to choose differentadvertising options, wherein the more advanced advertising is providedfor a fee. One such choice would be to select a free listing, anenhanced listing, or a premium listing. The features of each of thesechoices is shown in Table 2 below:

TABLE 2 FREE LISTING ENHANCED LISTING PREMIUM LISTING C-Screen ProfileC-Screen Profile & Score C-Screen Profile & Score & Score Company NameCompany Name Company Name Company Address Company Address Company PhoneCompany Phone Company URL Company URL Company Images & Videos CompanyDescription

Alternative Embodiments

Different industries would be more sensitive to different employeetraits and would require different screening requirements. For example,the pharmaceutical industry would be sensitive to employees havingcriminal records relating to drug abuse. Therefore, the employeescreening procedures selected for screening employees in this industrywould have more stringent or additional drug screening procedures.

Similarly, child care centers would be more sensitive to screening outapplicants for employment that indicate a propensity to misbehaviorrelating to children. This may have more stringent or additionalemployee screening practices relating to sexual crimes with children, orphysical abuse of children. Therefore, each industry (and possiblysub-industry) may employ different employee screening practices whichmay be determined to be included under the spirit of the currentapplication.

The rating or score described above for an IE 3 rated by the system ofthe current application, can be expressed a single scalar number, or canbe expressed in terms of one or more of the intermediate calculationsused to arrive at the final score. For example, the score may beexpressed along with one or more subscores for different categories ofthe employee screening practices used to determine the final score.

Any of the scores may be expressed as coded colors with a spectrum fromlow to high. They may be categorized into segments of the overall scorerange, or expressed in any currently known method for indicatingratings.

In another embodiment of the current system, a user or IE 5 can requestadditional information for an additional charge. For example, the basicinformation identifying an IE 5 is made available, along with the finalscore (rating). For a small fee, this score may be broken down into itscomponent scores for different subcategories of the employee screeningpractices to more clearly study the scores of the subcategories. Thismay lead to a better understanding of the employee screening practicesof the subject IE 3.

Other capabilities may exist such as the ability to analyze screeningpractices across the entire database. For example, it will be possibleto determine which, of the total set of IEs 3, does or does not performa driving record check.

Additional abilities could be implemented in the system of the currentapplication, such as time tagging information to acquire a timedimension. For example, the IEs 3 will be expected to enter the datewhich they began to implement each of their employee screeningpractices. A default date could be the date that they enter theinformation into the system which could be updated to reflect the actualdate they had implemented the practice. This can give an indication ofhow an IE 3 supplemented their employee screening practices over time tothe present time.

The system may also implement a score history. This will store thevarious scores for an IE 3 as the score changes over time. One may lookat the history of the IE 3 to see the advancements it has made over timeand the continual increase in score. This is particularly important toan IE 3 which had a low score that has worked to improve its score overcontinuous improvement.

5-Star Rating System

It is more recognizable and inherently easier to view and compare starratings as opposed to numerical ratings. For example, numbers may beconverted to a 5-star rating system where each star represents 20%.Therefore a 5-star rating=100%. Therefore, all ratings are converted toa percentage being a score divided by the maximum score obtainable. Thisresults in a number from 0 to 1, where 1=100%. This may be rounded offto the nearest half-star with each half-star being 10%. Therefore 4 and½ stars would equal 90%.

As indicated above, the process a company uses to choose its employeesis very important to how it functions. However, there are other aspectsof a company that go to the core values of the company, such as theintegrity of the upper management. Theoretically, they are the decisionmakers and set the direction and processes in place. Therefore, it isalso valuable to know how the management has acted in the past toprovide to potential customers.

The goal is to use publically-available information to minimize thesubjectiveness of the report or rating. The research is limited to theexecutive management, who are the decision makers.

Management—Criminal Background Check

It may cover criminal background checks on the executives. The a) numberof offenses, b) severity of each offense; and b) recentness of eachoffense are considered in determining a rating for past crimes.

a) Number of Offenses

The rating may take into account all of the offenses above a certainlevel of seriousness. These will be accumulated as part of the rating.

b) Severity of the Offense

Each offense may have a severity based upon the actual sentence or fine,the sentence/fine suggested in applicable sentencing guidelines (stateor federal). These may be used to estimate the relative severity, basedupon a given sentence/fine relative to a calculated averagesentence/crime for a defined population.

c) Recentness of the Offense

Each offense considered should be weighted with decreasing weight basedupon when the offense was committed. This is based upon an assumptionthat the person being examined may have changed over time.

Management—Civil Background Check

Similarly, there may be a civil background check, which may indicatebankruptcies, foreclosures, and civil lawsuits. Again the number,severity, and age of the civil actions are taken into account indetermining a rating.

Management—Financial Background Check

In states in which it is allowed, it would also be important to performa financial background check listing outstanding debts for keymanagement individuals at the company being analyzed. Due to privacyconcerns, the actual debts should not be published, but the debts may becompared to an average debt of a similarly positioned individual. Forexample, a similarly positioned individual will have similardemographics, such as any of age, sex, family size, location,occupation, etc. The rating could be a general rating such as one tofive stars, with 5 stars being the best rating, and an average ratingbeing 2.5 stars based upon the outstanding debts. The reason for thefinancial background check is that an executive's decision may be swayedwhen one is in dire need of cash, possibly causing damage to thecompany.

Management—Previously Owned Companies Background Check

Since past performance may be an indicator of future events, it isimportant to see what companies each of the target managers have ownedor controlled before. It is also important to determine how well thecompany did under the control of the target manger. For example, arating can be created which considers the company's dollar sales whenthe target manager was an executive at the company. This may be thedollar sales when the target manager left the executive position of theprevious company as compared with the company dollar sales when thetarget manager started the executive position. This is normalized forthe number of levels the target manager was removed from the topposition. For example, if there is a company with three managementlevels and the target manager was the CEO, the multiplier will be 1.0for the top level. If the target manager was one level removed from thetop level, level 2 of 3 levels, the multiplier would be ⅔ or 0.67. Thisadjusts for the amount of control the target manager has over thecompany's decisions.

The dollar sales difference during the target manager's tenure should benormalized by the company's average sales for the target employee'stenure.

These numbers can be accumulated going back a predetermined number ofyears for companies in which the target manager was an executive.

Since many of the parameters reviewed for the target managers are noteasily reduced to equivalent scalar numbers, reports or ratings may begiven for each of the individual categories discussed above.

Ratings from 3^(rd) Party Sites/Services

Other less objective measures of company management could also be used.Sites and services exist that provide approval ratings of CEOs, or thepercentage of current employees that would recommend working for a givencompany to a friend, such as www.glassdoor.com. The number of consumercomplaints can also be an indicator of problems with management of acompany. The actual raw numbers must be normalized for the size of thecompany. One way is to determine consumer complaints per annual income,or consumer complaints per number of employees.

FIG. 6 shows a system diagram of an automated system 100′ according toanother embodiment of the current invention. (Elements here will havethe same function as those elements with the same number that have beenpreviously shown and discussed.) The system 100′ provides objectiveinformation and ratings of the tasks of employee screening practicesperformed by industry entities (IEs) 3, and adds information regardingthe executive management. Again, we assume that the IEs 3 are homehealth care companies for the home health care industry, or othercompanies for other industries. This also is an on-line system whereinat least part of it is remotely located and remotely accessible. Asabove, IEs 3 communicate through IE communication devices 241 throughlocal area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), Internet, privatenetwork, or other inter-computer connection means (collectively referredto as a “computer network”) 11 to an IE storage 110. The IE storage 110is the main depository of information of the IEs 3, as will be explainedfurther below.

Users 5 are allowed to access, search, and view, but not modify ordelete information on the IE storage 110 using user communicationdevices 243.

As with the system 100 of FIG. 1, the system administrator 7communicates directly (or through an optional systems administratorcommunication device 247) with other elements of system 100′ toconfigure, initialize and otherwise manage the system 100′. SelectingScreening practices

The system administrator 7 interacts through a system administratorcommunication device 247 with a controller 210 to determine a listing ofrelevant screening practices for at least one industry covered by thecurrent invention in the same manner as described for FIG. 1. Controller210 may incorporate a specific device and/or software routines that aidin determining the screening practices to be used. The methods listedabove are also used in this embodiment:

-   -   identifying the screening practices common to the leading        publications in the industry;    -   statistically identifying the leading reasons for employee        dismissal and identifying the screening practices associated        with these reasons;    -   selecting a group of experts in the industry and polling them        for the relevant screening practices, then selecting those        screening practices that had been proposed by several experts.

In the simple embodiment, an expert 9 in the industry, acting through asystem administrator communication device 247, communicates with acontroller 210 which may employ a processor 220. The expert 9 can simplyinput the screening practices to be used in the rating process. Thesescreening practices can then be stored in the parameter storage 130.

In another embodiment, controller 210 may include a parameter selectiondevice 230 that may receive published studies in the industry relatingto screening practices. The parameter selection device 230, controlledby the system administrator 7, searches for relevant screening practicesand analyzes them. The most relevant and/or commonly mentioned screeningpractices will be stored in the parameter storage 130 and used to ratethe IEs.

The parameter selection device 230 may also search published expertsurveys dealing with screening practices. These may be digested toprovide the few most commonly mentioned screening practices that will beused for rating the IEs 3.

The parameter selection device 230 may also analyze numerouspublications dealing with publications of experts' experience in thefield, selecting the most commonly mentioned screening practices thatwill then be stored in the parameter storage 130 and used in rating theIEs' employee screening practices.

In another embodiment it can be arranged that a number of experts 9 loginto the automated interactive system 100 through systems administratorcommunication device 247. The experts 9 can log in at their leisure overa period of time. The parameter selection device 230 may theninteractively send questions to the experts 9 requesting informationthat would identify screening practices that they believe are relevant.The parameter selection device 230 receives the experts' 9 responsesthen selects the most commonly mentioned screening practices for use indetermining a rating. These screening practices are then stored in theparameter storage 130.

Determining Weighting Factors

The weighting factors may be determined as described above.

The system 100′ allows the IEs 3 to view the information about them thatis currently in the IE storage 110 that is being provided to the public.The IE 3 is allowed to search through the IE storage 110, view records,and provide updated information about its own records in the IE storage110. The updated information is verified by the system administrator 7.Once it is verified, the information is updated in the IE storage 110.

The theory of this embodiment is that the executive management hassignificant power and influence over the employees and how they behave.Therefore, an analysis of the executive management will providesignificant information on how services are provided. Therefore, eachexecutive analyzed is referred to as a “target manager”.

The processor 220 looks at a record in the IE storage 110 for an IE 3 todetermine the top executives. If this information is not availablethere, the processor 220 then accesses a corporate information databaseor corporate information service 310 through the web 11. Once the nameor other identifying information of the target manager is obtained,processor 220 may perform a criminal background check by accessingCriminal Background check database or service 270 through the cloud 11.Similarly, the processor may then access civil background check databaseor service 290. This may have information such as past and currentlitigations, bankruptcies, and other adverse actions.

The processor 220 may then access the financial background checkdatabase or service 290 to find information on current and past debts,liens, and other financial information. The processor 220 may alsoaccess a corporate database or service to find past companies which thetarget manager has managed.

All of this information is implemented as indicated above to determineif there are any known items which may affect the target manager'sdecisions, bias his/her decisions. These may be indicated as a report orreduced to a rating in several categories. Selected portions of thisinformation and/or ratings can be stored in the IE storage 110 for theusers 5 to view and for the IE 3 to view and request updates.

This process is repeated for the top executives of an IE 3. The entireprocess may then be repeated for several of the IEs now resulting inratings of the thoroughness of the employment process, and informationon potential weaknesses of management of an IE 3.

While the present disclosure illustrates various aspects of the presentteachings, and while these aspects have been described in some detail,it is not the intention of the applicant to restrict or in any way limitthe scope of the claimed systems and methods to such detail. Additionaladvantages and modifications will readily appear to those skilled in theart. Therefore, the teachings of the present application, in its broaderaspects, are not limited to the specific details and illustrativeexamples shown and described. Accordingly, departures may be made fromsuch details without departing from the spirit or scope of the teachingsof the present application. Moreover, the foregoing aspects areillustrative, and no single feature or element is essential to allpossible combinations that may be claimed in this or a laterapplication.

1. A system for providing information regarding employee screeningpractices of industry entities (IEs) comprising: IE storage adapted tobe remotely accessible and to store values of a plurality of screeningpractices of the IEs; parameter storage having a list of screeningpractices to be used to determine a rating for a selected industry;weighting factor storage adapted to store weighting factors that eachcorrespond to a selected screening practices indicating their relativeimpact upon a rating; a controller coupled to the IE storage, theparameter storage, the weighting factor storage adapted to: acquire theselected screening practices from the parameter storage; acquire valuesof the selected screening practices from IE storage; acquirecorresponding weighting parameters from the weighting factor storage;create a rating equation for the selected industry employing from theselected screening practices and their corresponding weighting factors;create a rating for at least one IE of the selected industry havingvalues for the selected screening practices by applying the ratingequation to the acquired values for each IE.
 2. The system of claim 1further comprising a plurality of IE communication devices adapted tocommunicate between the IE storage and each IE, wherein each IEcommunication device is adapted to: request information from the IEstorage; input missing values for the screening practices relating toitself into the IE storage; and update existing values for the screeningpractices relating to itself in the IE storage.
 3. The system of claim 1further comprising a system administrator that interfaces with thecontroller to select screening practices that will be used in ratingeach IE of a given industry.
 4. The system of claim 3 wherein anindication of the selected screening practices is stored in theparameter storage.
 5. The system of claim 4 wherein the screeningpractices comprise at least one of: verification of past employment,verification of background, and drug screening tests.
 6. A system forcreating a rating of the employee screening practices of industryentities (IEs) comprising: IE storage of having prestored screeningpractices that have values indicating a status of each screeningpractice; weighting factor storage having prestored weighting factorsfor at least one of the screening practices; a controller which createsa rating based upon the values of the screening practices and theweighting factors of each screening practice.
 7. The system of claim 6wherein the weighting factor indicates the relative impact of theselected screening practice.
 8. The system of claim 6 wherein the ratingis based upon a combination of the screening practices multiplied bytheir corresponding weighting factors.
 9. The system of claim 6 whereinthe values in the IE storage are populated by the IEs interactivelyusing IE communication devices.
 10. The system of claim 6 wherein theselected screening practices are at least one of the group consistingof: verification of past employment, verification of background, anddrug screening test results.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein theselected screening practices relating to verification of past employmentfurther comprise at least one of the group consisting of: employmenteligibility (19) verification, employment history verification,education/licenses/credentials verification, reference check, and socialsecurity verification.
 12. The system of claim 10, wherein the selectedscreening practices relating to verification of background furthercomprise at least one of the group consisting of: state criminalbackground check, federal criminal background check, civil lawsuitcheck, credit history check, motor vehicle report, child abuse check,elder abuse check, national sex offender check, excluded parties listsystem (EPLS) check, list of excluded individuals/entities (LEIE) check,and tuberculosis testing.
 13. The system of claim 10, wherein theselected screening practices relating to verification of drug screeningtest results further comprise at least one of the group consisting of:pre-employment drug testing, post-injury drug testing, random drugtesting, and reasonable suspicion drug testing.
 14. A method of ratingindustry entities (IEs) in a given industry comprising the steps of:selecting screening practices that are relevant to the industry;determining a relative weighting factor corresponding to at least one ofthe selected screening practices based upon its expected impact upon theemployee screening practice; providing an automated system to allow theIEs to enter values for the selected screening practices relating toitself; and calculating ratings from a combination of the values of theselected screening practices and their corresponding weighting factors.15. The method of claim 14, further comprising the step of publishingthe calculated ratings on an automated system.
 16. The method of claim15 wherein the ratings are on a website running on a server accessibleby a user.
 17. The method of claim 15 wherein the ratings are accessibleby an applet running on a mobile device.
 18. The method of claim 14wherein the selected screening practices are at least one of the groupconsisting of: verification of past employment, verification ofbackground, or drug screening tests.
 19. The method of claim 14 whereinthe selected screening practices relating to verification of pastemployment are at least one of the group consisting of: employmenteligibility (19) verification, employment history verification,education/licenses/credentials verification, reference check, and socialsecurity verification
 20. The method of claim 14 wherein the selectedscreening practices relating to verification of background are at leastone of the group consisting of: state criminal background check, federalcriminal background check, civil lawsuit check, credit history check,motor vehicle report, child abuse check, elder abuse check, national sexoffender check, excluded parties list system (EPLS) check, list ofexcluded individuals/entities (LEIE) check, and tuberculosis testing.21. The method of claim 14 wherein the selected screening practicesrelating to verification of drug screening test results are at least oneof the group consisting of: pre-employment drug testing, post-injurydrug testing, random drug testing, and reasonable suspicion drugtesting.
 22. The method of claim 14 further comprising the steps of:identifying the executive management of an IE from at least one of a)information entered by the IEs, b) a corporate database, and c) acorporate information service; choosing a target manager to analyze fromthe executive management found; obtaining at least one of a) criminalbackground information, b) civil background information, and c) pastcorporate performance for the target manager; adjusting the obtainedinformation for at least one of the a) severity of a criminal offense,b) age of the information obtained, and c) corporate size; creating arating based upon the adjusted information; making available to apredetermined group at least one of the information obtained, and theratings available to users of the system.
 23. The method of claim 22wherein: the adjusted information is used to create a rating of a targetmanager for at least one of a) criminal background, b) civil background,and c) past corporate performance; and making the rating available to apredetermined group.
 24. The method of claim 22 wherein the pastcorporate performance is adjusted by the target manager's level in thecompany.
 25. The method of claim 23 wherein at least one rating iscreated based upon the ratings of a plurality of target managers.